Assess community sentiment toward solar in seconds.
Overview
Solar Pulse is an AI-driven tool built on a vast proprietary dataset to simplify the discovery of public opinion toward solar in your area of interest (AOI). By utilizing sentiment scores and data from Solar Pulse, developers can trim hours off their due diligence, avoid costly site selection mistakes, and craft stronger community engagement strategies for their projects.
Solar Pulse is an optional add-on. For more information on pricing, please contact your Transect Customer Success Manager.
Table of Contents:
Key Features of Solar Pulse
- Visualize county-by-county solar sentiment scores in a "heatmap," including location data for 20k+ existing solar projects and jurisdictions with moratoriums.
- Access AI-driven sentiment analysis of thousands of news articles.
- Review hundreds of solar moratoriums and ordinances with concise summaries and optional Expert Verifications.
Solar Pulse Views in the Map
Solar Pulse includes 3 map layers: Heatmap, Solar Farms, and Solar Moratoriums. You can select Solar Pulse to activate all three sub-layers’ checkboxes or click the corresponding checkbox to enable or disable them individually.
Heatmap
Click the Heatmap layer to activate a high-level visualization of counties with positive, negative, or mixed solar sentiment, locations of 20k+ solar projects in development or in operation, and solar moratoriums (by their associated jurisdictions).
Counties with an “unsure” label/coloring are those for which we currently lack data, either because there’s been zero solar development activity in these counties, or the relevant data is not yet digitally available. If you come across any counties during your own due diligence where we’re missing data, please tell us via the in-app feedback mechanism by giving us a thumbs-down with a note providing the data that you found, where you found it, and a relevant link. This is key to helping accelerate the improvement process of the Solar Pulse tool.
Pop-Up Modal
Within the Heatmap, you can click on any county to see the underlying data driving the county’s Solar Pulse score.
“Your Site Selection” Side Modal
After creating a project area in the map, you’ll be able to see your AOI’s Solar Pulse score and sub-scores within the side modal.
Solar Pulse Views in Reports
Executive Summary
Please note that Solar Pulse is not currently included in the Executive Summary PDF export.
Solar Regulations
On this report sub-page, you’ll find a list of any solar moratoriums and ordinances we were able to find for the county(s) where your report’s AOI is located. You’ll also see summaries of these regulations, links to the source docs, and an option for “Expert Verifications” of moratoriums, for no added fee.
Solar Velocity
This report sub-page provides a list of solar farms in operation or in development within the county(s) where your AOI is located, including details about the project's size, estimated capacity, commercial operation date (COD), distance to your AOI, etc. You can sort or filter the projects by a few key data fields.
Solar Velocity also includes data for solar projects that have directly experienced significant opposition at the local or state level. Click the Contested Projects tab to see these projects, and then click the View button under “Description” to see a summary of what happened, along with links to relevant sources.
AI Solar Sentiment
This report sub-page highlights the aggregated sentiment score within the county(s) where your AOI is located, with a list of the news articles and their individual sentiment scores, sources, brief summaries, score reasoning, and links to the articles themselves.
Please note that Solar Sentiment only provides data relevant to utility-scale and community solar projects. Rooftop solar data is not included.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does your AI Solar Sentiment (news article) data and analysis come from?
We’ve built a proprietary data collection and analysis process to specifically target news articles with mentions of solar energy development.
Where does your Solar Velocity (solar farms) data come from?
We’ve aggregated a proprietary database of solar projects throughout the U.S. based on permit and interconnection data. Our contested project data comes from our friends at the Sabin Center via their June 2024 report.
Where does your Solar Regulations (moratoriums and ordinances) data come from?
We’ve built a proprietary data collection and analysis process.
How often do you refresh your Solar Pulse data?
We refresh our AI Solar Sentiment data weekly. We refresh our Solar Velocity data and Solar Regulations data quarterly.
How are you calculating a given county’s overall Solar Pulse score?
We’ve built a proprietary algorithm based on the three sub-scores listed below. Each has a different weighting to create an aggregated Solar Pulse score for each county in the U.S. If there is no data for solar news, velocity, or regulations in a given county, then the aggregated score will be “Unsure.”
How are you calculating a given county’s AI Solar Sentiment score?
We analyze individual news articles to determine how the content and tone seem to be toward solar development, ultimately leading to a positive or negative score. The articles written most recently are assigned a greater weight. Next, all news articles’ scores for a given county are combined to gauge the overall implied sentiment toward solar development, which determines the AI Solar Sentiment score. If there is no data for solar news, velocity, or regulations in a given county, then the aggregated score will be “Unsure.”
How are you calculating a given county’s Solar Velocity score?
Counties with active solar projects, but no contested projects, will receive a positive Solar Velocity score. The score is weighted higher (more positive) for counties with recently operational solar farms. Counties with only contested projects (no active projects) will have a negative score, and counties with both active and contested projects will have an “unsure” Solar Velocity score.
How are you calculating a given county’s Solar Regulations score?
If there’s at least 1 moratorium (regardless of the presence/number of ordinances), then the Solar Regulations score will be “Negative.” If there’s at least 1 ordinance but no moratoriums, then the Solar Regulations score will be “Positive."
NOTE: Some ordinances can be negative for solar development, though this depends on the details and/or location of a project. When all things are equal between two counties re: solar sentiment but one county has an ordinance and the other doesn’t, we assume that the county with the ordinance would be a safer bet for new development, as they’ve started thinking about how they’ll manage solar development in their county (whereas the other county is more of a wildcard and may enact a moratorium while they wrap their heads around solar).
If there are zero ordinances or moratoriums, then the Solar Regulations score will be “Unsure."
What is the earliest stage that a project will appear on your list for "Under Development"?
We will add a project as "Under Development" the first time it is publicly available—this generally means that there has been an early interconnect application or a zoning hearing.
What criteria qualifies a project to have its status updated to "In-Service Project"?
A project is moved to the "In Service Project" category once the construction phase is over or the project starts generating electricity.
Does the Application field represent the date when each project's developer applied to begin construction?
Yes, the Application date column represents the date when the Developer applied for project approval with the governing body (usually the utility).
Do you have any data about when developers took leases for their projects?
No, we currently don't track when developers took leases for their projects.
How can I share Solar Pulse information with my team?
Solar Pulse information can be shared with your team by sharing the report via magic link. Users will be able to review and interact with a read-only version of the Executive Summary and Solar Pulse data, including Solar Regulations, Solar Velocity, and AI Solar Sentiment.
How can I share my feedback or ideas for improving Solar Pulse?
Your feedback is important in helping us enhance Solar Pulse's value in your development efforts. Please use the in-app feedback tool (screenshot below) to provide positive and negative feedback on the features and data that are helpful and where there’s room for improvement (e.g., missing news articles with links). For general feedback or to help us prioritize which features to build next, please contact your Transect Customer Success Manager, who can set up a time for you to speak with our Product Team.
